The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 36]

I28

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 36

mentioned decree. Even the hint of it succeeded in
Linao where the insurrection took place in the following manner.
259. There are certain wild Indians in the
mountains of Butuan, located in the province of
Caragha, called Man6bos.28 They have kinky hair,
oblique eyes, a treacherous disposition, brutish customs, and live by the hunt. They have no king to
govern them nor houses to shelter them; their clothing covers only the shame of their bodies; and they
sleep where night overtakes them. Finally, they are
infidels, and belie in everything, by the way in
which they live, that small portion that nature gives
them as rational beings. Among so great a rabble,
but one village is known where some people are seen
far from human intercourse. They are a race much
inclined to war, which they are almost always waging against the Indians of the seacoast. There lived
Dabao,29 who had become as it were a petty king,
without other right than that of his great strength,
or other jurisdiction than that of his great cunning.
His wickedness was much bruited about, and he
made use of subtle deceits by which he committed
almost innumerable murders. He was often pursued
by Spanish soldiers, but he knew quite well how to
elude them by his cunning. For on one occasion, in
order to avoid the danger, he went to the house of an
evangelical minister saying that he wished baptism,
28 Manobos: This name is applied to several pagan Malay
tribes in northern and eastern Mindanao, the word meaning
"man" - just as many other savage tribes in all parts of the world
designate themselves as "men" ("the men," par excellence); but
Santa Theresa's description of them does not accord with that of
Dr. Barrows. (See Census of Philippine Islands, i, pp. 46I, 462.)
29 The same name as Davao, that of the province occupying the
southeastern part of Mindanao.